If a man had done this to a 14 year old girl, bail would have been denied and he would be given a death sentence.
But since it's a woman...well we cut her slack.
Posted on 09/17/2005 10:09:57 AM PDT by SamAdams76
WESTFORD -- An eighth-grade science teacher at the Blanchard Middle School was indicted on charges she had sex with a 14-year-old Westford boy -- one of her students -- in the back seat of a car.
School Superintendent Stephen Foster said he plans to recommend that the teacher, Susan Clickner, 46, of Chicopee Row in Groton, be fired.
Foster suspended her with pay after police received and investigated a complaint on July 23 from the family of the alleged victim, who is now 15.
Police arrested Clickner without incident on Aug. 31 before the school year started and charged her with statutory rape in connection with the April 8 incident. Westford police referred all comment to the Middlesex District Attorney's Office.
Clickner pleaded not guilty to charges of statutory rape of a child at her arraignment in Ayer District Court on Sept. 1. She was released on $5,000 cash bail. She must return for arraignment in Superior Court. No date has been set.
“I will meet with her attorney next week with the intent of eliminating her employment,” Foster said.
Reached at home, Clickner asked that The Sun talk to her lawyer but didn't provide the attorney's name.
“I'm not going to talk to you,” she said.
Foster said the School Department cooperated fully with police.
He and a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office said the alleged incident didn't occur on school grounds.
Foster said he interviewed and hired Clickner and also conducted a criminal background check on her.
“If we had sensed anything of this nature, sensed any concern, we wouldn't have hired her,” Foster said.
Clickner taught at the 600-student Blanchard school about a year and a half.
“The unfortunate part of this is that this is such a fine school district. If the charge is correct, it's a serious breach of trust at the highest levels, and it serves to undermine the professionalism, dedication and integrity of Westford teachers,” Foster said. “Right now my primary concern is to ensure that students in that grade are taught by a qualified teacher, to ensure a teacher who can fill the need of those students.”
Parents at a youth soccer game for elementary-aged children near the school last night were surprised by the charges.
A couple of parents, speaking on condition they not be identified, were also concerned that the school had not told residents and parents of the allegations. Such charges erode public trust, they said.
“These are not good times,” said the mother of a 5- and 11-year-old. “Who can you trust anymore? You send your kids to school and think they're safe, but where are they safe now?”
Bob Laliberte said there can be a tendency to disregard misconduct charges when they involve a female perpetrator, but that's wrong.
“I think sometimes there's a dual standard when it's a woman and a boy, but when this age is concerned, there shouldn't be a dual standard -- it's equally wrong,” he said.
After suspending Clickner, Foster said he hired a retired science teacher and assigned an elementary science coordinator to instruct eighth-grade science students at Blanchard. Because of the retired teacher, Foster said he was required to seek a waiver demonstrating a hardship in finding qualified science teachers to fill vacant positions.
This is the second time in recent years that a local schoolteacher has been accused of sexually assaulting one of her male students.
In August 2004, Chelmsford teacher Michelle Amundson pleaded guilty to rape of a child and five counts of indecent assault and battery on a person under 14 involving her 12-year-old student.
The 32-year-old McCarthy Middle School teacher was sentenced to three to five years in state prison followed by lifetime community parole. Her parole condition may be stripped after a ruling by the state's highest court this week.
Amundson, who was married to a Chelmsford firefighter and had no children, began the relationship with the sixth-grade student during the 2002-03 school year.
She had a sexual relationship with the boy from January to April of 2003, that began with sending him suggestive e-mails. It progressed to kissing and fondling in the school basement and escalated to the same sexual behavior in Amundson's house, prosecutors said.
And former Tyngsboro High special-needs teacher Karen Cross was convicted after a jury trial in 1991 of having sex with a student at her home. The boy's testimony and love letters they shared were key evidence at the time. She was sentenced to one year in jail, but Judge Robert Barton later reduced her sentence to six months.
I say that tongue-in-cheek, of course. This school is just a few miles from where I live as is the other school mentioned in the article. My 14-year-old son is a student in one of them (no, not THAT student). So this article hits very close to home.
It is interesting that in our society, when a male teacher preys on a 14-year-old girl, he is lucky not to be lynched on the spot. Yet when it is a woman preying on a 14-year-old boy, you get a lot of chuckling and remarks like the one I made at the beginning.
When I was 14-years-old (in the mid 1970s), there were plenty of older women around if a boy was interested in that sort of thing. When I was 15 years old, I was babysitting for a divorced woman down the street. When she came home, she started rubbing my shoulders and coming on to me. She obviously had been drinking. I lost my nerve and left the house in a hurry. But I never reported the incident nor mentioned it to anybody else at the time. I figured I would have been made fun of or had my sexuality questioned for not going through with whatever she had planned! Such is the difference between boys and girls in these kind of matters.
Are you wishing you could play it again, Sam?
A person would have to be totally ignorant of human sexuality, or in complete denial, to say that it doesn't make a difference whether it's a man or woman adult involved. There are few male teenagers who wouldn't love for a good-looking older woman to seduce them, and few female ones who are interested in the reverse situation.
Nope! Don't want to go back to those days. My teenage years were horrible. If you ever saw the movie "Napoleon Dynamite", that's the kind of life I had as a teen.
What the hell is wrong with these women? How could you find a boy sexually attractive?
Just gross!
But even if one was to think nothing improper of a sexual relationship between a 49-year-old woman and a 14-year-old boy, the teacher-student relationship makes it improper. I wonder what kind of a grade the teacher gave him!
If a man had done this to a 14 year old girl, bail would have been denied and he would be given a death sentence.
But since it's a woman...well we cut her slack.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
She was just supplying special needs....
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Sorry without a picture I cannot judge.
Oh I agree that it is improper, I'm just noting that it is totally different than if the genders were reversed.
Not much more to say beyond what you've said in your opening post, except that 14 year olds these days don't look like they did when I was 14. Something in the milk or meat...
Oh...I saw that movie.
If it were my son or nephew or grandchild, I would be out there in front of the TV cameras, radio, newspapers, magazines and any other outlet I could get my hands on to make sure this pervert was put behind bars. This is not funny. She is a child molester plain and simple. There should be people out there marching towards stopping this sexual assault on kids NOW.
Who the hell does she think she is anyway? She's no better than a man that assaults a young girl. She is a pervert. She is a sex offender. She is a child molester. She is a monster and she would sure know it from me and my family if it were one of ours.
Why are women getting a break on this? This has to stop. Put them away becuase they are not fit to walk among our kids.
I agree that 14 year olds look differently but...that's only because the clothing manufacturers make that clothing and the parents buy it. That said....that is still no reason to molest a child. This creep should be put away. She makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about her and her evil ways. Wonder how many other young boys she has molested but no one knows about. This is the type of thing we must realize. If she wasn't caught this time, how many more kids would she assault?
Thread is useless without a picture. Nothing personal.
Sadly, no pics.
Well I know about when males come into puberty, what I don't know is how a woman have sex with someone as young as her own child. It's just unatural. It's more normal for a young man to date a 16 yr old girl. Girls mature emotionally faster than their male counterparts. Yes I know that it is against the law, but it's more normal than a woman my age having sex with a boy young enough to be my kid.
I hope there is more than just the testimony of the student as evidence. The only thing worse than the criminal act is the possibility of this being a fabrication.
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